"It probably wouldn't have killed you, just put you through agony for about 18 hours"

That's what my assisitant manager John said to me this after noon when I was throwing out the peice of wood you see leaning against the dumpster in the picture below.







That pic was taken from the backdoor of my store. The wood itself was from a shelving unit I was throwing away. I was holding it by the top left corner and dragged it over there. When I leaned it against the dumpster and opened the top, I notied that there were spider webs all over the thing and some nasty looking spiders on it. Mind you, I had not seen these before I leaned the thing up. John came over and I told him "God damn, look at all of these spiders!". He looked at the one closest to the top left and said "Wow. That's a Black Widow"









After soiling my pants I managed to say "A Black Widow?!? Are you fucking kidding me?" He said "No. You can tell by the red spot on it's abddomen" I beleive that John would have known this, seeing as how he was an Eagle scout. It was then that I realized just how close my hand was to the damn thing. They are so tiny. I have never seen one before. Below is a pic of my hand, which was a little bit closer that in the pic. To give you an idea of how close my hand was, I was holding the board by the second slat. The one that the Black Widow is just above with it's tiny abdomen of death poised to strike. haha. I was a bit scared to get any closer than what you see here.

I went back into the store and was telling people what I had just seen. They were shrugging their shoulders and saying "Wow" with absolutely no interest. It was as if I had seen a pigeon in Central Park. Sort of the way an old freind had told me about Scorpions in Arizona. They are like roaches in a cheap East Village apartment. Actually, that is not true. there are no cheap East Village apartments. Just lots of roaches.

So that ends this episode of Tom's true tales of danger. Next up I am going to walk into a bar with an alligator and see if anyone will take my challenge. haha.

Be good ya'll